I'm thinking...

I really want to start blogging on a regular basis again. Not just journaling pages, but real blog posts. Especially book reviews. I frequently say I'm going to start posting book reviews- but then I read so many books that I get overwhelmed and don't know what to say. This time I'm really going to start writing them. I am. I love reading other peoples book reviews and they always make me want to post some myself. They will be book reviews with plenty of spoilers however, so be warned. (I shall put a spoiler warning at the top of each post). My favorite book blog is Sarah's and I really like her method of rating books (See: http://thearomaofbooks.wordpress.com/about/ratings-method-of-fictional-work/)

I also made a new GoodReads account: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/12739408-emily so if you have one do do find me because it's much funner if you know plenty of people.

Outside my window...

Looking outside today makes me long for summer. Of course, I don't exactly want to skip spring, but I'm so looking forward to long sunny days, curled up in a patch of sunlight reading. Yes, this is the way I think about summer. I think about reading in a warm patch of sunlight.

One of my favorite things...

This video is pretty much my favorite thing on the Internet right now. Yep. Pretty much.

I'm reading...

Divergent by Veronica Roth. *emits inhuman squealing noises* I don't know how else to put it but keyboard smashing AIUGHDGKHAGKH. (The Internet has taken it's toll on yours truly.)

I'm wearing...

Jeans and a grey dress over top. Undignified, yes. Comfy, also yes. Besides this dress is too short to wear without pants, but it's too comfy to throw away. I wear it only at home days. Now you know my secrets. Guard them well.

A few plans for the rest of the week...

I shall write my first book review this week. There it is, written in black and white. No backing down now. Not even if procrastination and laziness swallow my soul and I whither up beneath their evil claws. Wow, that sentence went melodramatic, and I'm not even going to backspace. What is the world coming to?

Also, schoolwork.

Also, reading.

Also, writing. I'M A NOVEL WRITER (...I cry pathetically as unwritten words wrap around me and crush me to the floor) I SHALL NOT BE DEFEATED.

Obviously, I'm in a melodramatic mood.

A Quote I'm sharing...

My birthday is coming up this week, and that made me think of this quote. I remember stumbling on it a little while ago and loving it. I've never read the story it's from, but I like the quote so much that I am definitely planning on it. I believe it's from a short story called Eleven by Sandra Cisneros. Beyond that I really don't know much about the story, but it's a lovely quote. Bear with me since it's a little longer than quotes I would normally post. It's the perfect quote for the week of a birthday.

"What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t. You open your eyes and everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today. And you don’t feel eleven at all. You feel like you’re still ten. And you are — underneath the year that makes you eleven.

Like some days you might say something stupid, and that’s the part of you that’s still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama’s lap because you’re scared, and that’s the part of you that’s five. And maybe one day when you’re all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you’re three, and that’s okay. That’s what I tell Mama when she’s sad and needs to cry. Maybe she’s feeling three.

Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That’s how being eleven years old is."

I'm thinking...

There's such a lot of things I could be writing here. I don't know if I've mentioned, but I was recently accepted into my school of choice, so that's been filling my thoughts quite a lot recently. It's a lovely feeling to know not only where I want to attend, but also that I'm an official student for the Fall of 2013. It's funny, it felt that I was waiting such a very long time and I had so much time to imagine out how I would feel if I got that white envelope with an acceptance letter, that it almost didn't feel real. I felt that I had only to blink and I would be back to the waiting process and realize that I had only been imagining it out again. The powers of an overactive imagination I suppose. Anyhow, I'm so very excited. I still feel a little worried about things, but I'm trying not to dwell on that too much. It's so easy to spend all your time worrying and then find that you wasted that time that was supposed to be filled with peace and happiness. These months are supposed to be months that I get to enjoy all the time of expectancy and excitement. Months of planning. I don't want to waste them in worrying. I know this is the college and I need to trust that everything will work out as it's supposed to.

On another note my head has been brim full with Much Ado About Nothing lines. Apparently my brain would not rest upon having memorized my own lines and is now forcing me to memorize everyone else's as well. Shakespeare lines go flouting through my head all day long and I believe if I'm caught unaware sometime I shall suddenly shout at somebody "BOYS. APES. BRAGGARTS. JACKS. MILKSOPS." or,  as it is more likely, I shall random start muttering dialogues that have nothing to do with my character. "What? My dear Lady Disdain, are you yet living?" "Is it possible that disdain should die when she has such meat food as Signor Benedick?" I'm afraid I've already caught myself at this obvious sign of insanity, and I'm finding it quite hard to keep from chattering to myself as I shelve books at the library. It's always been hard not to drift into dialogues (most often dialogues I'm writing for my own stories) at work, and even harder to keep from repeating things that I've memorized. Once you know the alphabet backwards and forwards and are slipping books and DVDs into their places at top speed you find your mind has far too much room for thoughts pertaining to other things than the job at hand.

On the subject of Shakespeare plays I recently went and saw Love's Labor Lost, which I would almost say is my favorite play now. It was awfully funny and very cleaverly done. They had set it in a 1920s area, a timeperiod I love and it was really fun watching it, especially from the viewpoint of someone who is currently taking part in a Shakespeare play. What I loved most was all the physical humor, at one point they had one of the characters reading a love poem that he had written all over his arms and puzzling how he was to send it.

Outside my window...

Little beads of dew are dripping off the blades of grass. There's something red hidden in the grass but I can't quite make out what it is, perhaps a ball of some sort. I can also see some of those tiny daisies appearing, though they don't seem to be open. Just closed little buds waiting for some sunshine to appear.

I'm listening to...

A CD of piano music called Overcome by David Nevue.

I'm creating...

I don't know if I'm really creating anything at the moment. No continuous project, I mean. Saturday afternoon Ella and I sat on the table and painted pages and pages of green watercolors. I painted a poster with that John Green quote "My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations." I think that's my favorite quote, or part out of any of his books. A sentence of brilliance.

Oh but camp NaNoWriMo is coming up! I think that's in June? I haven't read too much about it, except that I know there is one (I get the newsletters, you see.)

Oh and in May I'm going to get to sew! We're going to sew lovely vintage dresses and I'm so excited to think about it.

From the kitchen...

I thought perhaps I would write out a sentence regarding the dinner I wished to make, but having written it out I decided it sounded far too mundane and instantly backspaced.

On a random note we've been discussing what we're going to do for my birthday and I'm really excited now. I think we're maybe going to get dressed up and go to see Jersey Boys which is playing at one of the gorgeous theaters, or perhaps go and listen to the Symphony which would be splendid fun as well.

All in all this has been a rather excitable journaling page. I'm in just an excitable mood. That is, I would be if I weren't so tired. Sleep is good.

I’m thinking…

As I begin this day, and this journaling page I want to start off with this prayer:

Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen

I went into Mass on Sunday feeling upset and hurt, and walked away feeling peaceful and happy. I think lately I’ve been a bit caught up on how things are affecting me specifically; how people are affecting me, how events specifically affect me and that viewpoint has been making me feel unhappy and upset. I’ve been feeling used and walked upon because I’ve been focused on other people’s actions and words, rather than how my actions and words are affecting other people. The thing is, you can’t change anyone else, and you can only change yourself, and work on your own outlook. You can only control the person you are going to be and the affect that person is going to have on others. I can either focus on my own hurt, or I can focus on how I can try and bring joy and happiness into others lives. I can either choose to be unhappy, or I can choose happiness. It’s often as simple as that.

I want to stop putting myself in a situation where I often come away feeling second best, a back-up plan. I’m going to stop going out of my way only to find myself sitting again curb feeling discarded. This isn’t anyone else’s problem, it’s mine. There’s a difference between being a good friend who is there when someone needs you and jumping up at their beck and call at the least notice. This doesn’t mean I’m upset or angry anymore- and I’ve been there. I’ve been in a place where I’m so angry that I don’t want ever to be around people again. This isn’t constructive either. I’m going to try and be a good friend, someone who can visit and be friendly, and yet at the same time not throw myself into trying to make everything perfect only to be dropped.

I’m not going to focus on those people who hurt me. I’m surrounded by so many people who love and care for me, my family, and I want to be happiness in their lives. I want to be focusing on others rather than myself.

Yes, I’m a far ways away from being that person. From being the person I’m trying to be. I’m working on it though. I know the sort of person I want to be, and that’s half the battle. I know I want to take this prayer truly to heart. I want to turn this viewpoint of mine upside down. I want to be happy because I’m focusing on those changes that I can make, because I’m fixing those things that can be fixed and not making myself unhappy about those things that can’t. I want to focus on the good in people.

I'm listening to...

 

The Les Miserables Soundtrack.

 

I'm creating...

 

I need to finish working on several scholarship applications with deadlines that are quickly approaching. I suppose this can be listed under creative work, can't it? It certainly needs effort in creating.

 

A few plans for the rest of the week...

 

This week I want to spend more time reading. More time drawing. More time writing. Much more time writing. Less time on the computer. More time creating. More time thinking, imagining, working. Less time on things that don't really matter at all. I want to write. To write stories, and blog posts and poetry. I want to read, biographies, fiction, short stories and poetry. I want to learn. I want to grow. I want this week to be a happy, productive, beautiful week.

 

Outside my window...

 

Mud, mud, mud. Which would be delightful- that is if I had the proper footwear for it. I need a new pair of rubber boots rather desperately. Very necessary around here.

 

 

From the kitchen...

 

It's almost lunchtime, and so, this must be

 

The End.

 

 

I’m thinking…

I have decided that one of the things I need to work on is beginning to like preparation work. Unfortunately, as of right now I loathe it, and I really think I always have. There is a reason why I have always hated writing outlines before writing, why I hate cutting out patterns before sewing and there’s nothing I like less than taping off a room before painting it. This isn’t productive for obvious reasons. It’s necessary to do the taping before you paint and the cutting out of patterns- at least if you want your finished product to be of any worth. I find it awfully like torture though. When I start a project I am so very excited to actually start. I can’t wait to write those first few words on the page, to make that first splash of paint on the white wall, and putting off that visible start is awful. Perhaps this can be simplified to saying that I need to work on patience, the patience to do the necessary work before I’m able to begin the enjoyable part of the work.

Actually, patience is definitely something I need to work on. I’ve found this out over the past couple months from long hard lessons of waiting for college and scholarship applications to be returned to me.  You can picture me here strangling a mail box and then slowly crumpling up and dying. Yes, this is melodramatic, but Emily is melodramatic on occasion (as we know too well) and suspense is not something I handle well. This would be why I read books so quickly. Not because I’m a fast reader (though I suppose you could say that as well) but because I simply won’t put the book down until I have finished it because I don’t handle suspense. (Let me here recommend the book Entwined, which has been my record breaker fast read for the year. Yes, I know, it’s only March.)

I’m listening to… King of Anything, Sara Bareilles.

Outside my window… it’s lightly raining outside. I hope it gets harder. What I hope most is that we have a great big storm and the power goes out. That’s always my favorite. I love lighting candles and wrapping up in blankets. I love the feeling of it being cold and rainy outside and being nice and cozy inside. I really love storms. 

I’m reading… Cinder. I’m actually not very far into it but so far I’ve found the whole premise quite interesting. Normally I wouldn’t be too interested in books about cyborgs etc. but I’ve heard quite a few favorable recommendations of it so I thought I’d give it a go.

From the kitchen…about as soon as I finish this I shall start on making up Chicken Enchiladas for dinner.

I’m creating… a drawing of a duck. It’s for a scholarship I’m going to be trying to enter. I would post it but I don’t think you want to have things you’re going to enter in contests published on anything, even if it’s only you’re personal blog. I think that’s usually the procedure. Could be wrong.

 A few plans for the rest of the week… Wednesdays are a busy day of the week. First play practice and then work for me. They both take up quite a bit of time and I go from one to the next so Wednesday is a busy day. I’m looking forward for Thursday because I like Thursday. I’ll probably be babysitting Ella and that’s lovely. Friday is of course lovely simply because it’s Friday, almost the weekend. I’m really looking forward to Saturday because after I get off work my cousin and I are going to go to Mass and then come back to my house and have a nice time visiting and watching movies. Perhaps we’ll make brownies or milkshakes or something. So Saturday sounds quite pleasant. Then it’s Sunday and the end of the week. Is it just me or do weeks feel like they’re getting shorter? It’s only Tuesday and it already feels near the end of the week.

 I’m hoping and praying…well, I’m rather hoping I hear back from the Union Carpenters Scholarship I applied for. I worked really hard on that one, considering the essay topic was something I found very intimidating, and I pushed through and researched and came up with a finished product. So hopefully I hear back from them.

 One of my favorite things…mail. It doesn’t matter whether it’s physical mail or email. I just love mail. There’s nothing better than finding mail waiting for you to discover and open it.

Happy Birthday Pride and Prejudice!

As today is the 200^th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice, I want to write a blog post wholly devoted to that lovely subject. No, really. This has been something I’ve been looking forward to for days. Two hundred years. It’s rather amazing when you think about it. First published January 28, 1813, a book, that two hundred years later is so universally beloved and appreciated. Let’s just talk about the amount of film adaptations that have been created from this book, shall we? They come out every few years.

 There is the black and white version that came out in 1940, starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier. I actually haven’t seen the entirety of this version, but I have seen several clips from throughout the film. What I did see I found enjoyable, even though this was partly because I found it amusing. What with the dresses that seemed more reminiscent of Gone With the Wind than the regency era and the exaggerated accents. Not to mention it beginning with a race between the Bennet family and the Lucas one, as they wildly try to get home first (and thus send out husbands/fathers to meet the newly arrived Mr. Bingley). Their mad disarray as they galloped homewards was amusing to say the least. It reminded me of the scene in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, where they’re racing their wagon after kidnapping the girls. I thought Greer Garson made a lovely Elizabeth Bennet however, even if quite a lot of it verged on the ridiculous. It was the sort of thing that was amusingly ridiculous, and enjoyable because of that.

 Next we have the BBC mini-series with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, perhaps the most beloved of all the versions; it has Colin Firth after all. Everyone knows that he is Mr. Darcy. We really can’t accept any other actor as Mr. Darcy after him! We have been spoiled forever! After once having been introduced to Colin Firth, there was no going back. I love this version of course, how could I not? But I can’t say I think it absolutely perfect. I think the problem I have with this version is that everything’s a bit too exaggerated. Mrs. Bennet will of course always grate a bit on the nerves, but she’s almost unbearable in this. Mr. Collins, Lydia, etc are just the same. My other thing is I just feel that Wickham’s a little bit…obvious. He’s obviously the “bad guy,” and everything points to that. Now, when I read Pride and Prejudice I remember being truly surprised. Wickham is supposed to take us in; we are supposed to be entirely fooled by his good looks and his charm. Now, I usually wouldn’t make comment about an actor’s looks for a part, since that’s superficial and stupid, but it does sort of bug me when the “bad guy” is cast as looking definitely less handsome than the “hero” (unless of course, that’s they’re supposed to look like that.) Same with when the leading lady is cast as being especially beautiful in contrast to a lesser character (Jane) who is in the book supposed to be much prettier than leading lady. It just bothers me. Like “all our favorite characters must be beautiful and gorgeous but all the bad guys and less characters get to be plain and unattractive.” (That turned into a bit of a rant, didn’t it? But Wickham is supposed to fool us! He isn’t supposed to seem sleazy till Mr. Darcy reveals his true nature!) This might all seem a bit harsh considering it’s probably my favorite version, but you see if I didn’t talk about the things I don’t like I wouldn’t have quite as much to talk about. I can’t just babble “I love it. I love it. I love it,” for a blog post, when I very well might if I were just talking about it. It’s the most near to the book, and thus the most near to my heart. I’ve watched it so many times, and I never get tired of it.

I think the most recent movie version is the one that came out with Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen. What I always say about this version is that I like it as a movie but don’t like it when comparing it to the book. As a movie it’s the sort of thing I watch over and over because it’s nice and relaxing and the music is my favorite. That’s the best thing about that movie, the music. The music is beautiful.

 Now I want to talk about The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which is a series I’ve been watching recently. I don’t know if it could strictly be called a “film adaption.” It’s actually a series of vlogs (video blogs) of about four or five minutes each, and they’ve been coming out for a couple months now (I think there’s a total of about eighty videos now). It’s a modern adaption filmed as if Lizzie Bennet is filming these videos herself and blogging about her life. I think it’s a really interesting take on the story, and I think the actors have done such a good job in bringing to life characters from a different century into this one without losing too much of their essence in the translation. It’s actually made me think a lot about what has and what hasn’t changed over the years. What has remained the same while the entire world around us has changed. I’ve gone back and looked up particular sections of Pride and Prejudice and compared them to seeing it brought out in a modern day and age. 

 Anyhow, happy 200^th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice! I hope everyone has a lovely day, and I wish to send you tea and many regency dresses!

After Night and Before Morning

I’m thinking:

This morning I got up quite early, lit a candle on the table and set the coffee pot a brewing, and started upon blank notebook paper with my sharpened pencils. I was determined to make some progress before the world woke up, and I hope that I can say I have made some at least. The funny thing about getting up so early is that it feels for a bit as if you’ve been transported to another world without time. A continuous dark has settled upon the world, a dark that does not seem to lift and stays pressed against the windowpanes. It is neither night, nor is it morning, but a time (or timelessness) in between. At times it feels like somebody has pasted blackened paper on the other side of the windows and if you could only get past it you would see a different world, but instead you continue to travel through a timeless space.  Perhaps it is what it feels like to be traveling about in a spaceship with no day or night by which to gage the passage of days. I can imagine those hours between night and morning as being somewhat similar to what it must feel like drifting about in a weightless, timeless orbit. I keep repeating the word “timeless,” don’t I? If I were listening to my inner editor I should immediately go back and erase the numberless usages, or quickly think of some other word that would be better fitting for my sentences, but at the moment I simply don’t mind. I don’t mind if I use the word “timeless” once or a dozen times in this paragraph, for I belong to a timeless word where time is too precious to be wasted fretting about silly things such as that- for time is so precious as there is no time at all.

 I’m reading:

 Actually, I’m in-between books. This of course shan’t last beyond a couple hours more before I go digging into my stacks and fishing up a new one to read. I just finished reading “Daddy-Long-Legs” and also “The Lioness and Her Knight” the second a book I read fully over a couple days worth of breaks at the library. It was an easy (yet really quite enjoyable) read, in which I could finish a full fifty pages over a break, so it didn’t take me long at all to finish.

I’m creating:

Well, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before or not but next Monday is the 200^th anniversary of the publishing of Pride and Prejudice, so I rather thought I’d write up a series of blog posts about various screen adaptations, but we’ll see how far I get. I have a couple starts to them, a few sentences at the top of the great many word documents I have open at this moment. The problem never is the beginning though, it’s what comes after that is tricky. I’m also at work on another knitted hat, exactly like the one I just finished, because that one turned out so nice.

 Outside my window:

It seems impossible that morning’s are ever stormy (of course they are and that statement’s simply ridiculous, but at the moment it seems impossible) for the pond is so glassy still, the trees all standing still and motionless as well, not a single breeze to be seen. Everything is still, as it seems like it ought to be in the morning time. Night and darkness is the time for wild winds and rattling of windows as raindrops hit them in a fury, but morning is a time of stillness, of awakening. You never see a thing wild with any great emotion just as it first wakes, would it make sense for the world to be so? For the morning to come roaring to life? To my mind it makes far more sense for it to wake gradually, coming more and more to life as the minutes pass, but very still just at first. Very still.

 I’m listening to:

 Celtic music. I’ve had it playing just about as long as the coffee pot has been brewing, so rather a  long time indeed.

 From the kitchen:

 On the topic of coffee, it won’t be long before I shall be needing to make another pot. The other one has grown quite cold by now, and Mom still needs to have her coffee so another pot I shall make.

 I’m hoping and praying:

 For snow. I really want it to snow. Well, perhaps I’m not exactly praying about snow, but I’m most certainly hoping. Other than that I am praying that I can stop fretting so much about things and trust that things will turn out exactly as they were meant to. It’s no help fretting and worrying, and I shouldn’t, and I know that, but the problem is I still do. So I need to stop.

 A few plans for the rest of the week:

 

Well, I suppose just continuing doing what I'm doing. Starting with finishing up this journaling page and getting back to work on Algebra. I'm planning on going to see Les Miserables again on Thursday though! Which will be a lot of fun! Oh and I'm also quite excited about Cabin Pressure on Wednesday, yay!

 

 

Beauty and the Beast and Knitted Hats

I'm thinking:

It was rather funny this morning. I wrote something up for my journaling page and then went to preview it and see how it would look formatted on the blog and it turns out I had been writing on my other blog. I hadn't been on that blog in a while and it made me laugh because it felt like I was going back in time somehow. Slipping back into last year. It's funny how that can happen sometimes. You open a book, or a blog that you frequented almost every day in years before, and it feels like you are simply stepping back in time.

I'm reading:

So, it's January. I want to start keeping better track of the books I read in the next few months (hopefully all year, but we'll see how I do). I just finished reading my second book for the month (reading book number three and four at the same time right now). Beauty is the book I just finished (it was a Christmas present) and I have to say, it was one of the best retellings of fairytales that I've ever read. You never can tell with retellings of fairytales. Some turn out to be rather good, others not so good. The trick is, I think, keeping the strain of the original fairytale and not losing the essence of the story. Sometimes the author gets so caught up in creating their own idea of the character that they lose who that character really was, because it is all there to begin with. Even though fairytales are often written without an over abundance of words, there is still a strain of a character that needs to be caught onto if the retelling is going to succeed. I think Beauty was so well done because it felt like it was simply adding more to the story in descriptions and such, but never straying for long from the story's real beginning. Not to mention that the Beast actually seemed rather frightening to begin with, which I liked quite a lot. Nomally he isn't, and he's supposed to be. Beauty and the Beast is probably my favorite fairytale, actually. I just love it so much. After finishing Beauty I went and found my CD from the Broadway musical, and listened to some of the songs from that. I shall probably be obsessed with Beauty and the Beast for a little while now.

I'm wearing:

I rather look like a ragamuffin today. A tear in the knee of my jeans (put there by myself, thank you very much), a shirt that really was a dress but I wear it as a shirt because it's much too short to wear as a dress, and a ruffled shirt beneath that. Ah well, it's home I stay today, so I can enjoy looking like a ragamuffin and dance about the room in bare feet.

I'm listening to:

Songs from Les Miserables on youtube. I want to buy the soundtrack eventually. I'm just not getting tired of all these songs. They are perfect. Really, really perfect.

I'm creating:

I've almost finished knitting a slouchy hat with my Christmas yarn. I'm excited about it because the colour will just match the red scarf I have and the red mittens my grandparents brought back from Canada for me. So now I have a full set. Or almost. I just have to finish knitting this hat.

On the topic of creating I really need to start working on my NaNoWriMo story again. I haven't made much progress since November ended and I would still like to finish it. So there's another project waiting for me.

A few plans for the rest of the week:

Did I mention I ordered a Latin book? That's what I'm most excited about this week. I read the introduction yesterday and I'm going to start on chapter one today. Yes.